spookiest thing you've ever seen in the back country

dieselguy · 08-10-2005, 10:21

just like the title asks, what's some spooky/scary/crazy things that you've seen in the woods.

a while back my cousin had a tiger run under his tree stand (ecscaped from zoo)

any bigfoot sightings?

noway · 08-10-2005, 11:41

A tiger? I bet that freaked him out

About a year ago, one of the ,main actor that tarzan was created off, had his exotic tiger escape. The location is out in the middle of nowhere kinda, but I was always wondering that would be a very weird situation if you where out hunting a deer/hog and out of the blue a full growth tiger ran out and caught your game animals or worse attack you. ;P

by the way his tiger was corner and killed by game comission folks after the bigcat elude authorities in Palm Bch county for I think 3-4 days. Alot of negative PR developed over this. Tarzan also got fine for improper containment and a few weeks later iirc , a portion of his ranch had a fire. He a series of bad luck like in one month.

ECVMatt · 08-10-2005, 13:03

with the cooks still in attendance...I was driving around out in the desert, came over a small hill into a valley and lit up some folks making meth. We were all sorta suprised and I got out of there before they could collect their thoughts. Sorry ,no Bigfoot.

Matt

vafish · 08-10-2005, 19:59

I saw an Emu running around a Suburban Northern VA Park a couple weeks ago. Must have broke out of a farm somewhere.

Castigliano · 08-10-2005, 22:13

Well not bizzare, but two unique predator hunting incidents.

1. Sitting in my deerstand on a cleared fenceline behind the family farm. No heavy snow yet so the deer can run fast through the woods. Well A doe comes out to the fence line 100 yards out and runs to me so I put up the rifle out of instinct. She does not flinch and keeps bounding towards me and I start watching behind her for a buck and she comes within 5 feet of me and we were looking eye to eye and she never spooked. She jumps over the fence and all of a sudden I look down and there was lone coyote trying to run her down in the snowless woods (no chance for him). Didn't get a shot off at the coyote, but he lost a lot of hair crashing through the barb wire fence.

2. December grouse hunting in the snow you occasionally see weasels out hunting. Several times I have stood still and had them walk right over my boots praying they don't go up the pants leg though. One morning I stop to look for birds and I start looking at a broken off birch tree that has rot voids under the bands of bark. As I am standing there I see a mouse poke out of a bark hole at about the same time a weasel shows up. That weasel starts climbing up the tree going in and out of the bark holes looking for the mouse. This lasted for 10 minutes where I would see the mouse poke it's head out and scurry back under the bark and the weasel was doing the same thing and looking at me. Eventually the mouse jumps to a closeby sappling and crawls down to the ground. I start telling the weasel "down here" and finally the weasel is about 7 foot up and it looks down at the base of the sapling and spies the mouse there. The freakiest thing is this weasel jumps off the dead tree and nails that mouse dead on. I heard a little squeck when the weasel gave it a bite and up comes the weasel out of the snow with the mouse in it's mouth and bounds away. I actually cheered for the weasel. Scary to say it, but I cheered the same way when Bush got re-elected! (lol)
c

noway · 08-10-2005, 22:37

Will for me I guess it would be crazyiest thing.

The most crazyiest thing I've ever seen, happen this year at the end of spring turkey season. I was in a makeshift blind constructed out of some fallen limbs and the back from a big sand live oak that fell down from the last year hurricanes.

I was calling some turkeys in and trying to get them around to my front, so I was peering thru the back of the blind at 3-4 yurkeys hens that where standing 4-10ft away. One hen had me nailed and was staring at me eye-ball to eye-ball. It had just let out a loud putt and I knew for sure she would put 2+2 and = 42 come up with human! When all of the sudden out of the middle of nowhere I saw a splash or grey/brown/blackish object runnning to my right of my position. It was a hog that ran right thruthe middle of the hens. It freak me out but more so it freaked the hens out and they all scatter.

A few minutes the hens came right back behind me, sratching and peeking at the dirt. The same hen who had me eye-ball-to-eye-ball was not satisfied and kept a close watch on me the whole time. I don't thing I moved an inch or a muscle. To bad that hen wasn't a tom. It woiuld have been a point-blank shot

vafish · 08-11-2005, 07:19

I did also see a woman in a brown fur coat walking her light brown german shepard in the woods during deer season.

Cicero · 08-11-2005, 07:57

Stalked by a mountain lion while backpacking in Glacier. Back in my wacky leftist days when handguns were bad. It never came all the way out in the open, but it kind of felt like the first Predator movie - we could see its shape in patches through the dense underbrush (12 feet away), we could hear it, and we could see the brush move while it paralleled us.

mpol777 · 08-11-2005, 12:16

I have an emu story, but I'll have to keep that one to myself. Emu ranching was a get rich quick deal out here. It didn't take so now AZ has "wild" emus.

I've met some crazies out in the sticks. One fella was out there to stay away from "them". Not sure who "them" was, but the way he was talking it was either UFO's or ghosts or something. ;5

My old man shot a male wood duck that was on a direct path over our blind. With the timing of the shot and the trajectory he was able to reach out and catch it. Never hit the water. Not spooky, but kind of cool.

Lawrence Keeney · 08-11-2005, 18:24

About four years ago, I was in the back country about a half-mile away from my car looking for an illegal garbage dump. I use to write articles about such things for our local newspaper.

I came upon what I determined to be a Satanic sacrifice site. It was a large pentagram painted on the concrete base of an abandoned coal mine tipple.

There were half-burned candles on the ground and the dead body of a dog in the middle. About the time I became totally aware of what I was seeing, I started hearing all-terrain vehicles coming across the treeline. At that point, I started realizing how much potential trouble I might possibly be in. That old movie, "Race with the Devil" started playing in my mind. However, I wasn't armed with Warren Oates' pump shotgun, just my 5-shot j frame, and no reloads.

At that point, I decided retreat was the best option, and hot footed my fat ass down the hill and across the road to my car. As the ATVs got closer I made it to my car and peeled out of there.

I came back with a couple of sheriff's deputies the next morning. The pentagram was there, but the dog was gone. I can tell you though, we all brought a lot more guns than just my little 38.;f

mikeashurst · 08-12-2005, 20:52

Yep. I've seen a bigfoot. It was in Lee County, Alabama at about 2:00am. Very big, very hairy, and very scary.

Castigliano · 08-14-2005, 21:46

Last fall during the unusually warm & sunny minnesota deer hunting season, My brother and I walked up to deer stand to find a guy laying by the base. The stand is about 100 yards from the neighbor's hunting cabin so we figured he had jumped the fence and sat in my stand. Well we determined he was not dead and he woke up after napping in the sunlight. We tried to point him home, but he was pretty drunk so he kept saying "I will sleep here and you just shoot if a buck comes out, don't worry about me.". I really didn't want to do that and I finally got him pointed home and he kept talking about how nice my deer stand was. At least he asked "do you want me to take my beer?" since it was on the handrail of the stand. We kind of laughed with the neighbors later when they found out we had found "ted" who had too much "fresh air" and they didn't know where he wandered off to. Thank god we are pretty friendly here and no feathers got ruffled. Thinking about evicting a drunk guy with a rifle gave me chills when I heard about the Wisconsin Vang shootings.
c

A_Swede_17_1911 · 08-14-2005, 22:25

A erie feeling is hearing a Cougar scream in the middle of the night, one thing I had happend which was kinda funny, after watching the Blair Witch Project, I went bow hunting for Elk in the Ochocoes of Oregon, well we had to hike a little under six miles to get to were we slept cause one of the roads we usally take was closed cause of the fire danger, well that night we had a couple pulls of tequillia, (bow hunting, so this was the last weekend of August), and go to sleep, well in the the middle of the night me and about 4 other buddies wake up to the sound of a can being kicked across the ground. Well for a second it kinda freaked me the #$*% out, well soon you saw two does playing with a beenie weenie can that a buddie set, out a couple feet from the sleeping bags, so we watched these two does kick this can around for like ten minutes then they left.

I also had a doe scare the hell out me and a friend once, we were chasing some grouse and mountian quail around the lower elevations of the Cascade mountains well, we came across some cougar tracks early that afternoon, again this was in early Septemeber so I was bow season for deer as well so i had my bow with me. Well we walk up to a landing and didnt kick anything up, well there was a a group of small trees that was pretty thick, well we walk up on em and start hearing some sorta purring/ growling noise, so were like damn, all we have are .410 over unders loaded with 8 shot, and my bow down the road in the truck, so we back up and throw a rock at the group of trees, and a damn does come rocketing out.

UtahIrishman · 08-14-2005, 22:27

I was in the Saw Tooth mountains of Idaho a long time ago for a summer of camping and lazy gold panning. One day I was hiking up the trail when about 200 yards in front of me a grizzly bear stepped out onto the trial. I stopped right where I was and just watched him. He turned and looked at me then poof he was gone. I mean he didn't amble off..he was gone gone. Not a sound the whole time.

It didn't really spook me until later. At the time I thought it was cool to see a grizzly. I didn't feel any fear or anything. Just felt like an observer watching something magnificent.

I had a similar incident happen with a big bull moose in Utah about five years ago. One minute he was there the next he was gone. Those big animals can sure move quietly when they want to.

mikedb · 08-24-2005, 23:30

I found a grave site in an isolated area of a state rec area that had markers going back to 1835. The grave site contained a woman and two kids. The park knew nothing of the site but the local historical society did and asked me to keep the location to myself for fear of vandalism.

Lawrence Keeney · 08-25-2005, 10:01

You know, with all the things we read, and the creepy movies about people being menaced in the woods by monsters and inbred hillbillies, I don't know why anyone goes camping or hiking unarmed.

I know I sure don't.;b

Cicero · 08-25-2005, 13:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Lawrence Keeney
You know, with all the things we read, and the creepy movies about people being menaced in the woods by monsters and inbred hillbillies, I don't know why anyone goes camping or hiking unarmed.

Gosh, haven't you been reading all the stories from the park rangers and cops out in the southwest, esp. on the border? Don't you know that it's illegal to have a firearm in a national park? According to one higher-up down there, the last thing you want to do is "inject a gun into the situation." The experts tell us that we need to take precautions against crime - you know, like have a whistle and make sure to lock up your belongings. But don't even think about bringing a gun.

< /sarcasm off >

Lawrence Keeney · 08-25-2005, 15:25

Well...that may be true. However, I wouldn't be making any gun-like noises in the campgrounds of state parks in my part of West Virginia about 2 A.M......If you get my drift.

Fifty different campers and their kids appearing from tents and campers armed with every kind of self defense firearm can make anyone get religion,AFTER they get done cleaning out their undershorts...

Trust me, I saw it happen to someone once. ;a;b

IV Troop · 08-25-2005, 21:22

I have seen an emu, a few mt lions, lots of bears, badgers etc. The scariest of all was what I thought was a bigfoot early one morning. Ended up being my mother in law before she shaved her back.

;P

jonathon · 08-26-2005, 23:51

On a surival outing, was just settling down and barely dosing off when I heard a cougar scream.

Another time, we were hiking late into the evening(about 11pm in August under the stars) just below Mount Hood. Ran smack into a herd of cattle and it scared the **** out of us. Almost had steak that night, I drew so dang fast and had the hammer eared back, wasn't fun. The way the things grunted and moved around in the dark was scarey. Till someone got out a flash light.

jonathon · 08-26-2005, 23:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Cicero
Gosh, haven't you been reading all the stories from the park rangers and cops out in the southwest, esp. on the border? Don't you know that it's illegal to have a firearm in a national park? According to one higher-up down there, the last thing you want to do is "inject a gun into the situation." The experts tell us that we need to take precautions against crime - you know, like have a whistle and make sure to lock up your belongings. But don't even think about bringing a gun.

Its perfectly legal to go armed in the National Forests.

Rusty Shackleford · 08-27-2005, 06:02

When I was younger I was wandering through the woods of NC.. my foot broke through what I quickly realized was a wooden coffin that had been buried very shallowly, very long ago. Seems it was a very old graveyard, unmarked.. As I became more aware of my surroundings I noticed there were pieces of broken coffins scattered around the area, and it appeared that either the water table had risen or the surface had eroded exposing them all. Pretty sure I made a very womanly shriek that I'm not real proud of, before hauling ass back the way I came.

Cicero · 08-29-2005, 12:27

Quote:

Originally posted by jonathon
Its perfectly legal to go armed in the National Forests.

Actually, when I lived in Virginia, there was a big issue over whether the forest service could ban CCW and, in fact, all firearms from the forest on the West Virginia border. This might have been the local rangers attempting to cozy up to the clintons, but there were signs and restrictions posted for some time.

branden · 08-29-2005, 18:39

In Ava Missouri at my friends deer hunting lodge couple years ago. There is a gate that is locked at night so no " meth heads" can enter, or about half a mile back, a river you can cross in a 4x4 to get to the cabin.

One night after hunting, everyone was standing around the campfire drinking beer and conversing and we saw truck headlights coming up from the river. This is very remote and the only people that would be around would be looking for trouble.So my friends uncle goes behind the cabin with his 30-30 and when the fellows came up with guns hanging out the truck, his uncle placed the scope on a fellow in the back of the truck. Make a long story short, it was the uncles son coming up for the night. He placed the crosshairs on his own son. Not very smart, but with the kind of people running around down there at night, it makes sense. Very chilling and the son was really fortunate he didnt make any sudden moves.

Other than that, last year bow hunting I scared the $#^$ out of a very unfortunate cat. This all black cat came out from the woods and walked right under my stand. I was going to shoot it because I hate stray cats but thought it might be my friends fiances pet at there farm so I didnt. But anyways, he walked under me and couldnt see me from the camo I was wearing so I made a pssst noise, and he looked up at me but couldnt make me out. Than I jumped up and made the sound again and this cat literally jumped straight up in the air about 2 feet and hissed REALLY loud and took off.....She didnt come back lol. I later found out it wasnt a pet so was pissed I didnt shoot it, but that story was better than killing a cat;f

needaglock · 08-29-2005, 18:53

FWIW cougars don't scream.